1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an outdoor unit of an air conditioner, more specifically, to an outdoor unit of an air conditioner in which a blower chamber is disposed above a machine chamber having a heat exchanger and a compressor.
2. Description of Related Art
As one of an air conditioner, there is a multi-type air conditioner in which a plurality of indoor units are connected to one outdoor unit. For example, as described in Japanese Patent No. 3710874, the outdoor unit of the air conditioner includes a horizontally elongated rectangular parallelepiped housing, and the interior of the housing is partitioned into a machine chamber having a heat exchanger and a compressor, and a blower chamber including a blower. The machine chamber is disposed in the lower portion of the housing, the blower chamber is disposed in the upper portion of the machine chamber, and the air blowing port of the blower is disposed on the top surface of the housing.
When viewed a lateral direction of the housing from front, a left half space of the machine chamber is defined as a left machine chamber, a right half space of the machine chamber is defined as a right machine chamber, the left half space of the blower chamber is defined as a left blower chamber, and the left half space of the blower chamber is defined as a right blower chamber, a first heat exchanger is disposed in the left machine chamber, a second heat exchanger is disposed in the right machine chamber, a first blower is disposed in the left blower chamber, and a second blower is disposed in the right blower chamber.
In Japanese Patent No. 3710874, both the first and the second heat exchangers are formed in a U-shape, and are disposed on a base plate (referred to as a chassis) so that open ends thereof face each other. The compressor is disposed in the machine chamber so as to be surrounded by two heat exchangers.
An air blowing port of the first blower and an air blowing port of the second blower are respectively disposed at symmetrical positions on the top surface of the housing with a center line in the lateral direction of the housing being interposed therebetween. Furthermore, the air blowing port of the first blower is disposed at the center in the front, rear, right and left of the left blower chamber, and the air blowing port of the second blower chamber is disposed at the center in the front, rear, right and left of the second blower chamber.
However, in a case where the blower is disposed in this manner, the amount of air passing through a front portion, a side portion, and a rear portion of the heat exchanger is not uniform, and a portion of the wind is wasted without being able to sufficiently exhibit possible performance of the blower. Meanwhile, although in order to increase the output of the outdoor unit, it is required to further enlarge the size of the chassis as the capacity of the heat exchanger increases, in a case where only the heat exchanger is enlarged in size without changing the size and arrangement of the blower fan, there is a possibility to further decrease the amount of air per unit area passing through between fins of the heat exchanger at the same rotation speed. In addition, although it is required to increase the rotation speed of the motor in order to obtain the same amount of air, current consumption inevitably increases as the rotation speed increases.
In order to solve the problem described above, a method of enlarging the size (enlarge in diameter) of the blower fan according to the size of the housing may be considered. However, the enlarging of the size of the blower fan causes the load on the motor and power consumption to increase, and thus this method is not preferable. In addition, when the size of the motor is increased together, it is required to reinforce the housing side, so that it is inevitable to increase an assembly man-hour and to increase a cost. In any case, it is not changed that the wind of the blower is partially wasted.